


My Empire of Dirt

by mugsandpugs



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Birth and Death, Bittersweet Ending, Child Abandonment, Childhood, Depression, Dysfunctional Family, Family Drama, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Latino Rick, Origin Story, Rick's Life Story, Teenagers, The Flesh Curtains, Vigilantism, War, life story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-16 16:15:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8109055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mugsandpugs/pseuds/mugsandpugs
Summary: He asked, "when is mama coming back?" only once. He could understand acetylhydrolase, Glucocorticoids, and tropomyosin but papa's sudden hoarse sob was far beyond his comprehension. The life story of Rick Sanchez told in thirteen segments.





	1. Part One: The Beginning of the End

**. I .**

Before the world taught him otherwise, he didn't know he was different; a devil, a freak, a curse. No, all he knew in the beginning was that while the kids on TV were learning _the cow says moo, the duck says quack_ he was reading his mother's left-behind encyclopedia collection. It didn't occur to him that it was strange he could read segments _astrophysicist_ to _zoomorphism_ and remember each word on every page. It was simply a thing to do in his and papa's little motel room with the sink that never stopped dripping and papa's beer-burps from the sofa, where he'd been lying motionless for days. 

He asked, "when is mama coming back?" only once. He could understand _acetylhydrolase, Glucocorticoids,_ and _tropomyosin_ but papa's sudden hoarse sob was far beyond his comprehension. 

. 

. 

**. II .**

School was pure hell, and his grades were abysmal. The white kids hated him because he was too brown, the Mexican kids hated him because he was too white, and everyone agreed that the Sanchez kid was too damn weird overall. He became mean from too many beatings under the bleachers and lean from his school-funded breakfasts and lunches being regularly stolen. The teachers were no help: they saw him only as a smart-ass trouble maker, constantly demanding he show his work, criticizing his grubby apperance, and calling his essays on dimensional space travel “a fiction.” 

Papa only sighed and clucked a tired, _“ay mijo,”_ every time his son returned home scraped and bloodied and a little angrier than he'd been the day before. He never did more than offer a beer or a joint, his solution to all life’s problems. The day Rick finally snapped and beat Billy McKinnon comatose into the pavement, he found himself promptly kicked out of school. He considered it a relief, and he knew papa did, too. 

. 

. 

**. III .**

He was sixteen and shoveling fish guts on the wharf for Mr. Gutierrez when it finally happened: a portal, glowing and green, opened on the waves, and out stepped himself. “Rick!” the twenty-something greeted him like an old friend, and Rick’s heart filled with shining light. He laughed and laughed and dove without hesitation into the sea, squirming out of his dirty coveralls (he wore a white t-shirt and Levi’s underneath) before reaching his alternate self, who pulled him under the armpits into the portal. 

“I knew it!” he exclaimed euphorically, hugging himself hard, and felt tears prick his eyes. “I knew I wasn’t wrong. I knew there was more.” 

“Damn right there is, fish-breath!” the older Rick carried his energy and reflected it right back at him. “Y-you ready to get the _fuck_ out of here?!” 

Rick could only nod, heart hammering as the portal closed around his old life, not caring where they went next. He did not look back. 

. 

. 

**. IV .**

Okay, so as it turned out, blindly trusting himself was a mistake. _That_ Rick must have been on the stupid end of the spectrum if he thought caging a bunch of Ricks together in a sweatshop-like space with all the materials they could ever need and orders to crank out inventions to start a war _wouldn't_ lead to a revolution.

Still, aside from the fact that he'd just been in a skirmish with himself, against himself, and had watched himself die a few times in some creatively horrific ways, he was feeling pretty good about things. After all, he now had a _portal gun_ \- the infinite number of dimensions were his to enjoy at his leisure. 

And enjoy he did. His curiosity was insatiable- for years he had to go _everwhere._ He tended to stop by bars first- prohibition planets were no fun- where he could sample the local culture and listen in on the gossip. 

It was on an exceptionally beautiful planet, with tall buildings and glass walls, crystalline lakes and jaw dropping mountain ranges where he was witness to something that changed his life forever. 

A scream cut through the bar chatter, and then more followed. The patrons rushed to a window- all the walls were windows- to look at the ground many stories below, where birdlike people were taking to the air, darting out of the way of descending spacecrafts. 

"What the hell..." Rick muttered, and the bartender glanced nervously at him. 

"The Galactic Federation," the old-timer said in a hushed monotone, the feathers in his brown owls' wings fluttering anxiously. "They want our planet and have been trying to negotiate with us for weeks. They say it is an ideal location for their home base. I fear negotiation is no longer on their minds." 

As Rick watched, a skinny girl- she couldn't have been older than fifteen- leapt into flight, her colorful hummingbird wings pounding the air powerfully. A figure from a spaceship coldly took aim and fired; they watched in horror as she crumpled, landing broken atop the roof of a nearby building. 

There was a charged pause, like the entire planet had forgotten how to breathe. And then there was only chaos, madness, and blood. 

Civilian bird people produced unusual-looking weapons hidden in seemingly innocuous places, arranging themselves in a formation that could not have been unrehearsed as they fired at the ships. In retaliation, the crafts opened to produce... _fly people?_

Rick rubbed his eyes and blinked rapidly, but they hadn't lied to him. Six-foot-tall, armed and uniformed _houseflies_ marched from the lowering craft ramps, interspersed here and there with other aliens and even some humans. There were thousands of them, and they looked trained for battle. 

This proved to be true when they opened fire on the civilians, mowing them down easily. Rick's stomach churned. These were just _people._ Businessmen and grandmothers and howling, down-feathered toddlers. 

The ones that could fought back valiantly, but the fallen bird people quickly outnumbered the dead Federation members. This wasn't a fight, it was a massacre. 

The city was rocked as a still-circling spacecraft dropped a bomb some fifteen clicks off; the aftershocks shook the buildings, made Rick's teeth rattle. He was dragged from the window by other patrons and they crawled behind the bar counter as more bombs dropped, huddled together like frightened children. 

The bar trembled again and some bottles fell off a shelf; a few shattered loudly and splashed their contents everywhere. 

Cries of _"Fire!"_ could be heard, and Rick squirmed away from the arms and legs and wings holding him back to stare out a window; to him, not knowing was worse than anything. It was so loud; roars and howls, the _rat-a-tat_ of distant machine gun fire. Even from here the stink of death and smoke permeated everything else. 

It was as though the world had caught fire. He'd noticed the high concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere upon arrival but hadn't thought much more on it; there was no other way the flames would have spread so _fast._ There wasn't a damn thing _not_ blazing, from what he could see. 

"We have to go!" he urgently told the others in the bar. When they stared blankly at him he pounced and seized two people by the arms, hauling them to their feet. "Move!" 

He threw them towards the door and grabbed another two people; the rest of the cowering group followed suit and hastened for the stairway to the rooftop. 

Upon reaching the summit of the tall bar, Rick pushed his way to the edge of the roof and looked around in awe. Bird people were leaping off buildings by the hundreds as the city burned below them, flying in a breathtaking whirlwind to... where? Where was there to go? 

A muscular arm snagged his waist and he was pulled skywards as well. 

"Huh?" He looked around and saw that he was being carried by a serious-faced young man with amber eyes and eagle's wings. "Um. Hi." 

"In my culture, we do not leave wingless people behind to die on burning buildings," the bird-man told him, and Rick cracked a grin. 

"Thanks, dude." 

They dove in formation with the other bird people and Rick, nerves bubbling into something like exhilaration in his gut, couldn't resist a whoop. He spread his arms wide as the stranger continued to hold him securely. 

His bird-man flew a little lower than the rest, likely because of Rick's added weight, and he didn't notice the armed federation soldier poised atop a nearby temple. 

"Birdperson!" Rick shouted in warning as the sniper met his eyes with its own multifaceted insect's gaze. It pulled the trigger, and the bird-man let out an agonized shriek as bloodied feathers filled the sky. He pumped his good wing frantically, but they were rapidly losing altitude. 

Rick, swearing loudly, assessed their situation: they were falling much too fast, tumbling head over heels. All around them, shots were firing and bird people were dropping like Icarus himself. Fire continued to rage disorientingly, a hellmouth growing hotter the further they descended. Smoke stung his eyes and filled his lungs. What to _do..._

Gripping the bird-man's wrist as tightly as he could, he fumbled in his coat for the portal gun and fired at random to a spot just below them. 

They plummeted into darkness. 

. 

. 

**. V .**

  
Everything was steaming. And _wet._ Rick felt like he was walking on a sponge in hot dishwater. 

The fact that he was carrying the soon-to-be corpse of a near-stranger did little to improve morale. 

"H-h-honestly, I expected you to weigh more," Rick told the barely responsive bird-man when he stopped to take a breath and assess their surroundings (swampy, hazy, all trippy day-glow colors. Had he any of his equipment, he'd be testing for hallucinogenics in the atmosphere.) "You're, you're kinda built like a brick shithouse, dude." 

"My kind have hollow bones," the man mumbled weakly into Rick's sternum. Rick had examined his wound- a through-and-through hole in his wing, an absence where once there had been feathers, flesh, and bone. He could easily have stuck a few fingers through the injury. It bled profusely, even after Rick had stripped his own shirt off and ripped it into bandages. 

"I am cold, Rick." Birdperson- he had a real name, but after hearing Rick attempt to mimic the whistles and hoots of his language, he'd hastily agreed that 'Birdperson' was fine- told him. His blood was beginning to seep down Rick's bare chest. "I fear I may lose consciousness." 

It was hot- too hot- on this marshy planet. Sweat ran freely down Rick's forehead, stinging his eyes, and still Birdperson shivered. 

"No," he told the man angrily, fighting off his own surge of anxiety. "Dude, I just need to find some sort of, of charging agent. Fix my portal gun up. Then we-" 

"Looks like you two are in a squanch of a situation." 

Rick startled at the new voice, looking around wildly for its source. At the base of a six-foot-tall pink fungus was an alien creature, felid though it stood on two legs and appeared to speak fluent English. 

"Looks like it," he repeated with some caution. For all he knew this thing was preparing to tripple in size and eat them both. 

It hopped from its mushroom and strolled leisurely towards them. Rick warily stood his ground as it stretched to sniff at Birdperson's good wing. 

"What did that to him?" he asked. 

"The Galactic Federation," Rick replied, seeing no reason to lie, and saw the cat-thing's slitted pupils widen in new interest. 

"So you'd say you don't squanch with the Federation," it clarified. 

"The federation slaughtered my people and took over my planet," Birdperson explained, in the same tone he said everything else. 

Standing ankle-deep in warm swamp water, holding an injured, winged man and talking to an alien, Rick felt a bit dizzy with the scurrility of his life. That, or it was the dense, soupy air he was breathing that made his head spin so. He swayed. 

"Whoa," the creature warned, bracing its front paws on Rick's hip to keep him standing. "Okay. Anti-federation refugees are welcome here. Hold tight a squanch." 

He dropped to all four webbed paws and ran lightly over the surface of the tadpole-filled algae. 

A moment later, a raft could be seen emerging from the dense willow-like trees. It was steered by two speckled brown cats using long sticks, with the orange cat guiding them. Rick waded out to meet the craft and gently laid Birdperson out, resting his head on a bag of mud-covered root vegetables before climbing on himself. 

He sat cross-legged next to a basket of melon-sized blue eggs and looked expectantly at the orange cat. 

"Let's get to town!" the leader of the trio said. "Refugees, I'm Squanchy. Welcome to Planet Squanch." 

... 

They recovered at the bayou medical clinic, where Birdperson's wound was packed and screened and Rick was given an oxygen tank to meet his body's needs. A calico caseworker assisted Birdperson in setting up lodging in subsidized housing. 

Rick got along amazingly with Birdperson and Squanchy. Though he'd never before had a chance to use the word, "friends," he could see no other way to describe the two. They spent much of their time during Birdperson's healing process together. 

The neighborhood Birdperson lived in was full of people with stories similar to his own, all victims of Federation brutality, and Rick heard their stories when attending group counseling with Birdperson. An itch inside him was growing stronger by the day; he'd never been one to sit idly by when action could be taken. 

"T-t-this is stupid," he finally snapped one night to Birdperson and Squanchy, standing abruptly from the table and going to the shelf where he kept his portal gun. "If this federation is so awful, why don't we just go take them down?" 

Squanchy and Birdperson exchanged a look. 

"Rick, you're drunk," Squanchy said; Rick rolled his eyes. He was barely buzzed. 

"To combat an organization as large and powerful as the federation, we would require planning. Information. Allies. It could take decades. It might be impossible, and will almost certainly cost us our lives," Birdperson said pragmatically. 

"W-well, we won't know if we don't try," he replied carelessly, holding the portal gun out. "Are you guys in or not?" 

The two shared another glance; an irritating habit of theirs, as if they spoke a language of eyeballs Rick was not privy to. 

"We'd need a cover," Birdperson finally remarked. "An excuse to travel planets and dimensions collecting information." 

Squanchy grinned, fangs gleaming almost as bright as his eyes. "Well," he said. "I've always wanted to be a rock star." 

. 

. 

**. VI .**

One night, as he leaned in close to his vanity artfully smudging his blue eyeliner, a cough behind him caught his attention. Birdperson loomed in his doorway, and in the shadow of his wing, there _she_ stood. Rick experienced a strange sensation in his chest, like his heart had hiccupped. 

To the majority, she wasn't anything special. She was a short strawberry blonde with heavy curves, as covered in freckles as the galaxy was filled with stars. She smelled faintly of gingerbread and when she really got to laughing, she would dissolve into high squeaks with tears rolling down her apple cheeks. 

She was a regular at concerts with a high percentage of humans, but couldn't quite be classified as a groupie. She didn't try to sneak backstage, didn't fawn and coo over him like so many others did. He didn't know when he had started looking for her in the crowds, a spark of elation when he saw her, a sinking disappoint when he didn't, but it was something Birdperson and Squanchy teased him for mercilessly. 

"Rick," Birdperson now said in his deep monotone. "Sandy here has some interesting information." 

Forcing down a sudden surge of nervousness, Rick swiveled in his chair to face her, plunking his leather boots up and crossing them at the ankle. He gave her his devil-may-care smile, eyes suggestively lidded as a rockstar's should be. "Does she, now?" 

She was wearing a Flesh Curtains t-shirt, black and straining across her generous chest. A stripe of plump, freckled belly could be seen between the shirt's hem and her high-waisted shorts. He thought he'd never seen his merchandise put to better use. 

"Rick Sanchez of dimension C-137," she said in a clear, authoritative voice. "I want you to know that, as vice president of the Galactic Federation’s human inclusion division, this concert is a sting operation. You'll be taken into custody the minute you step onto that stage." 

He stared at her, too shocked to speak. 

"I'm going to go get Squanchy," Birdperson declared. "We'll hide out at my home and regroup. You decide how we deal with her." He was gone in a brush of soft feathers. Rick kept staring at the undercover cop, mouth gaping slightly. Having said her piece, she fidgeted a bit, looking uncomfortable. 

"W-w-why are you, why are you telling us this?" he asked finally, and she lifted her chin to meet his eyes. 

"Because I want you to take me with you." 

. 

. 

**. VII .**

Elizabeth was nothing short of a marvel with a dove's coo for a voice and duckling down hair. Her eyes were intelligent and knowing, and he often propped his chin on his hands, watching her as she watched him back. 

Sandy laughed when she caught them having one of their staring contests, stepping over Rick's outstretched legs to sink into one of Birdperson's guest nests. "You act like you've never seen a baby before." 

"N-not one like this!" he insisted earnestly. Beth made a grab for his lip ring. "Aah!" 

"Get him, Beth!" Sandy encouraged, grinning wickedly. Pleased at having earned her mother's approval, Beth beamed and clapped her pudgy star-shaped hands, squealing. 

"No fair!" Rick tried to protest, but he was smiling too. "Y-y-you, you little shit." He kissed his daughter's fingers. 

She grew fast, napping in Birdperson's wings and chasing Squanchy's tail. And for a while, it was enough. Sandy taught her to read, and she watched her father assemble projects with keen eyes. She hated when her parents argued, though, which was happening with increasing frequency. 

"Where are you going this time?" Sandy demanded one morning, with that about-to-start-something tone in her voice that always made Rick's shoulders tense, his drinking hand twitch. 

"Out," was his curt reply. She knew he was still gathering information from the rebel alliance, attending masked meetings and practicing covert sabotage. 

"Oh great," she snapped, and huffed a sarcastic laugh. "Fan. Tastic. Why don't you come home shot full of holes again? That wasn’t traumatic at _all."_

"I-if you don't like dealing with it you don’t, nobody’s forcing you to." He wasn't looking at his wife as he rifled through drawers, searching for the updated portal gun he'd been working on. 

"There's a grand idea!" she snarled, made ugly by anger and disappointment, and it occurred to him that he couldn't remember the last time he'd heard her laugh. "You're a _father,_ Rick! Act like one!" 

"M-m-m-maybe, maybe I never wanted to _be_ a father; ever think of that?!" he roared, whirling on his wife at last and throwing a drawer at the wall next to her, where it crashed and shattered. In the rain of clothing that fluttered slowly down, he saw a pair of blue eyes watching them tearfully from inside the closet. _Oh shit..._

It took Sandy a moment to recover from the shock of nearly being brained by furniture; fury, indignance, and hurt filled her voice. "Why don't you just _get out?"_ she ordered, shoving him forcefully with both palms. 

He didn't return until late, long after he knew she'd passed out with a drink in her hand. He tried not to listen to his inner voice calling him a coward. 

She barely stirred when he snuck into their bedroom, filling a duffel with things he couldn't easily replace, and then returned to the door as quickly as he'd come. 

His heart leapt into his throat when he realized that he was not alone in the darkened hallway, but was being watched by a small, nightgowned figure. 

"B-B-Beth!" his hands flew to his chest in shock, nearly dropping his duffel. 

"Where are you going, daddy?" she asked groggily. Her chin-length blonde hair was frizzy from pillow static. 

"I'm-" he considered telling the truth, or just grabbing her up and taking her with him. "I'm just getting some ice cream, sweetie," he said instead, and closed the door between them. 

Kalaxian crystals did a decent job of numbing all feelings, but they never quite succeeded in erasing the look in his daughter's eyes. 

. 


	2. Part Two: You Can't Go Home Again

**. VIII .**

It was ten years before Rick again saw his daughter, ten years before he found nowhere to turn but back to his roots. 

Sandy only snorted when he managed to track her down and knock on the door. "You're too late," was all she said, and Rick's heart sank. 

His ex-wife shook her head at his expression, then grudgingly shared the address to a nearby high school. "Why don't you pick her up?" she suggested, and wore a horrible smirk, hate in her eyes where once there'd been only love. 

At a loss for what else to do, he drove his rented truck to the school and waited for the final bell to ring. Students poured out of the tall building's double doors, passing him without so much as a glance. Afraid he'd miss her, he scanned every face. He needn't have worried. 

A pregnant girl in a white jacket with a bag slung over her shoulder was the last to descend the steps, carefully holding her belly with one hand. She tossed a long plait of cornsilk hair over one shoulder. She walked alone, with her chin held high and a defiant expression on her face, and Rick would have recognized those eyes anywhere. He quickly got out of the truck. "Beth!" he called, and tried to keep the fear out of his voice. 

She stopped in her tracks and stared at him as students milled around them. "Dad?" 

He didn't know what to say to her, what to expect _from_ her. He certainly wasn't anticipating that she would throw herself violently into his arms, shaking like a leaf, but he took it in stride and held her as tightly as he could, shooting dirty looks at the high schoolers who stopped to gawk at the sobbing seventeen-year-old squeezing the breath out of an aging rock star. 

"Mom kicked me out," she bawled. 

"So we'll get a place," he replied. 

For a time, things were wonderful: a true, blissful happiness like something out of a dream. Tiny Summer was a joy; a quiet baby, a delightful child. Beth finished high school and, with some encouragement, selected a university. Though he didn't like Jerry- he found him squirrelly and dull and altogether inadequate for his daughter- he gave him kudos for sticking around. 

Eventually he found himself the proud grandfather of two: the freckled and friendly girl, and the shy boy always reaching to be held. It was indescribable, a soft kind of happiness he could not have expected. 

And then the Galactic Federation found them, and he was alone once more. 

... 

In this dimension, the Smith house was still standing. Serene and suburban and frosted with snow, it looked like a Christmas card. Numbly, Rick knocked on the front door, feeling distanced and dissociated. 

Summer answered the door looking not a day older than nine and blinked up at him. 

"Who are you?" she asked, in a wary, _stranger-danger_ tone, lips pouted suspiciously. 

"Is Elizabeth home?" he asked, voice hoarse, lips chapped from the cold. 

She'd been a barely recognizable twist of charred and blackened flesh and bone the last he'd seen her; the image resurfaced every time he closed his eyes. It was all he could do not to grab her up and jubilantly howl, _“you're alive, you're alive!”_

"I'll go... see if she is," Summer replied, and closed the door again. Muffled from inside the house he heard, "Mom! Some weird guy is here for you." And farther away, another voice he couldn't make out responded. It was answered by, "I don't know! I think he's drunk." 

Rick shivered, stuffed his hands under his arms to preserve heat, and tried not to look drunk. An agonizing minute passed, and then his daughter opened the door, gloriously alive and in one Beth-shaped piece. 

"Beth," he whispered, naked relief glowing on his face. Over his shoulder he saw Summer and little Morty peeking at them from behind the stairwell. 

Beth’s jaw dropped. _"Dad?!"_ she asked, and behind her, Morty tripped and fell with an _"Oof!"_

"Hey, sweetie," Rick said with a shaky smile. 

He even got to keep this set of Smiths for a whole eight months before they, too, were flaking gray ashes in the wind. 

... 

His heart had become stone some eight or eleven Smiths ago. Likely his liver, too; really it was a miracle his drinking hadn't hospitalized him yet. 

Knocking on the door of this dimension's Smith house, he let himself in when a teenaged boy opened the door. The colorful wall calendar had a circle around, _MLK’s Birthday!_

"Hey Morty," he greeted absently, striding past him and into the house. "Looking good. Beth! Beth?" 

Behind him, Morty stuttered uncomfortably, unsure how to respond to a stranger waltzing into his home and shouting for his mother. 

"Wait just a minute," Jerry, who'd been watching the television, stood up. "Who are you?" 

"I don't have time for you right now, Jerry," Rick brushed him off. "Or ever, really. Beth!" 

He hoped it wasn't one of those dimensions where Beth ran off on her family- like father, like daughter!-, or like that really sucky one where she'd died in a freak horse accident and the Smiths all lived with Jerry's parents. "Be-" 

"What is going on?" she emerged from the bedroom in pajamas, visibly hung-over. 

"Hey, sweetie," he grinned, and held his arms out. "Missed you." He never got tired of seeing her on the first day in a new dimension. Sometimes she was euphoric, sometimes she was furious, but always she recognized him and had yet to turn him away. 

Aside from that, the first day kind of blew. He'd long since grown tired of introducing himself to them over and over again, inventing explanations for why he knew things he shouldn't and stumbling over small dimensional abnormalities- cups in the wrong cabinets, sometimes a pet frog instead of a dog. The deja vu alone was a nightmare. 

He waited until they'd finally gone to bed that night before meticulously setting blast shields up around the entire house. 

Unable to sleep, he let himself into Morty's room and grabbed the kid by the ankle, dragging him out of bed. "W-w-we're going on an adventure," he informed his baffled grandson. 

. 

. 

**. IX .**

Ricks didn't last long if they couldn't turn off their ability to feel love. 

There was something wonderful about a Morty gazing at the stars, his face pressed to the window of Rick's car, lost in humbled awe at the galaxies spread before them and the endless possibilities of the universe. 

Rick wasn't stupid. Suicide rates were sky-high in a Rick, one of the reasons why a council of Ricks was so necessary. He knew the odds, and he prolonged the inevitable with alcohol. 

The Jellybean that tried to touch Morty was the first crack in his armor. 

He'd never before had to take a family member with him while galaxy hopping, but what choice did he have? Morty was with him, it wasn't as if he could have just dumped him off in a world of cronenbergs. Or, maybe he could have. Other Ricks might have. _Don't think, just drink._

He brushed the incident off, hoping Morty would learn by example, but the look of pure trauma on his face as he was forced to bury his own corpse had Rick's heart doing unpleasantly squishy things that _hurt._

"I'm Morty Smith C-137," the boy said to the Rick-guards, and Rick held back a choke of surprise. Of course he couldn't _know._ Of course he assumed this Rick was _his_ Rick, that they were of the same dimension. The real C-137 Morty Smith was disfigured and mutilated to unrecognizability, kept in a dehydrated state in Rick's desk as the scientist tried in vain to figure out how to bring the hopelessly damaged toddler back. 

Then Summer. He hadn't seen that turn of events coming either. Summer literally stumbled into an adventure in the arms of danger. He'd been unable to hide his panic when he'd seen her forced to the filthy ground, her ankles wrenched apart. 

It was pure, cold rage that left bodies littered around his grandaughter. _Nobody touches my family,_ he'd thought, and resisted the urge to hold her close. 

"I'm jealous of how much time you spend with Morty," she'd confessed to him, and there was his damn heart again, doing that thing where it felt as if it were being compressed in a trash compactor. 

"I don't really give a damn what you think," he'd lied. 

So he had a soft spot for the kids. It wasn't as though it were a crime- technically speaking. Strapped down to another Rick's table with his memories callously invaded, he felt tears filling his eyes as he was forced to relieve better days. When he'd been so proud to show Birdperson his baby Morty- _"I am happy for you, Rick."_ When the toddler had trustingly held his arms up to his grandfather, like he'd always be safe so long as Rick held on tight. 

This new Morty gave Rick that exact same look as they were stranded alone together in the hungry void of destroyed space-time, clutching his grandfather with pure trust in his eyes, trust that had in no way been earned. 

Cringing as though stabbed, Rick had fastened his own time stabilizing collar to the boy's throat, prepared to meet an end at last. _"I am okay with this."_

Through the grace of a god he claimed not to believe in, he and his three grandchildren survived to go on more adventures, to sing in his car cruising through space together. They were, after all, only children, and he'd had no intent to love them. 

All Ricks scoffed at the word "love," and yet most Ricks always found themselves coming back home. 

_"I don't want him to leave again, you asshole!"_ Beth screamed at her husband, folding over as she tried to fight back her own tears. 

And that's how Rick knew he needed to go, for the sake of his family. 

The Federation had won. 

. 

. 

**. X .**

They were gone. Not since the first time he'd watched his family burn did he feel as low as he felt after the death of his two best friends. 

Everything they'd fought for since they were young and idealistic, when they'd truly believed they could change the world, was down the drain now. 

Although he'd never articulated the thought, he'd always felt that he'd be the first to go, to burn out in a blaze of glory like a star. And now, what was he? Old, exhausted. Lonely. What had it all been for? 

He knew he was sick. He knew experts would throw labels on him: _clinical depression, alcoholism._ They'd site his larger worldview as a lack of empathy; sociapathy, even. He knew Jerry did already. But he'd seen cosmos. He'd held worlds in the palm of his hand. He was the closest thing to a god he'd ever known, and now he was alone with not even Birdperson to understand him or Squanchy to make him laugh. 

He'd never truly appreciated the word _heartbroken_ before. 

Although he'd expected it, he still wasn't prepared for the brutal intensity of withdrawals. They hit fast not hours after he was imprisoned, though at least they did temporarily relieve his state of perpetual boredom. It was hard to think of such things when he was sweating through his jumpsuit, shaking so hard his wrist and ankle bones rattled in their manacles, vomiting stomach acid down his front time and time again. 　 

A needle in his forearm supplied a steady stream of chemical nutrients, and panels taped to his inner thighs and upper chest gave him small shocks to prevent muscular atrophy. He didn't even want to think about the catheter. The one and only event he and the other prisoners bore witness to was the arrival or departure of other prisoners, and they only ever left in body bags. 　 

He ached for a swallow, a _sip_ of something, anything, just the slightest buzz to alleviate this hell. The moments of clarity dragged on (and on, and on, and on) with not an end in sight. This was purgatory and he was Sisyphus, forever pushing a boulder up the same hill. 

An eternity passed. 　 

. 

. 

**. XI .**

　

Rick startled when one day (night? morning?) a guard was sent to fetch him. Upon release of his manacles he fell like a doll into his captor's front legs and was held securely against its thorax. He attempted to squirm, but his energy was near-depleted and the gromflomite that held him was iron-strong. 

"I should probably, probably point out that I'm not dead," he told the guard, feeling infantile and ashamed at how easily he was carried through the uniform, high-security prison hallways. 

Upon reaching some sort of meeting room, he was set lightly on his feet and steadied while his hands were cuffed behind him; then he was lead to a table where five decorated officers sat around a holophone. 

His guard pulled out a chair for him and he sat too, looking uncertainly around. "W-w-what's this about, guys?" he asked. "Tea party? I could go for some wafer cookies..." 

"C-137 Ricardo Luis Sanchez," the gromflomite at the head of the table addressed him, flicking through his file, and Rick cringed. He hated when they used his full name. "We are in a troublesome situation, and your assistance is mandatory." 

He powered on the holophone- an outdated model; the 1s and 0s that comprised the 3D images on the table were plainly visible- and Rick cocked his head at what he saw. A naked gromflomite was kneeling, bound, gagged, and blindfolded, with a knife pressed to its head. Bodies of its fallen companions could be seen all around, gorily mutilated. Wielding the knife was an enormous tarantula-like being, fangs dripping. 

"The prisoner you wish to speak to is here," the lead officer told the spider nervously. 

"Sanchez," the spider on the other line hissed, its voice the hoarse wheeze of nightmares. "You slaughtered my people. You destroyed my planet. I want you. I want your blood on my hands." 

"Do you have hands?" Rick asked, raising an eyebrow. "I can't see any." 

The thing snarled and pressed its knife harder into the neck of its hostage. Everyone at the table aside from Rick made a noise of protest- clearly this gromoflite was of great value to them. 

"Give me Sanchez and I will return your president to you," the spider demanded. 

Rick grinned. He didn't remember butchering this spider's race, but it was more than likely he had. He'd annihilated many planets, and plenty of them had giant spiders. He believed this creature without a doubt. 

"Ooh, what's it gonna be?" he asked. "Torture? Slow and painful death? Are you gonna lay your eggs in me and have them burst out of my chest to populate a new world? I can't wait." 

The head officer shot him an enraged look and pressed a button on the table; Rick's cuffs sent an electric current into his wrists and Rick shuddered, biting back a grunt of pain. 

"We're willing to trade Sanchez for our president," the leader told the spider. "If you can provide us his remains in a timely manner. He is a dangerous man and can't be given the opportunity of freedom." 

"Why don't you just kill him yourself?" the spider asked, voice hitching slightly in a way that made Rick cock his head. "From my understanding, you have no trouble ruling your planets with a dirty, underhanded fist." 

This angered the lead gromflomite, who clicked its mandibles irritably. "Killing anyone under government sanction would look unprofessional to the public, who know we are here to keep peace and order in the galaxy." 

The spider made a gravelly sound that might have been laughter. "Alright then." It provided a series of coordinates and ordered, "Be there before the second moon rises; I want him alive." The holophone cut out and the room fell silent. 

"Well!" Rick exclaimed with a beaming grin. "How the tables turn." 

  
　

... 

　

Rick stared in shock when the pod he'd been locked inside creaked open. The rogue spaceship he'd floated into contained no spider, large or small. Instead there stood only three people completely covered in metallic gray paint before a projection screen. Beth beamed as she helped him out of the pod; her teeth looked very white against her paint-coated lips. "Hey dad." 

"Ugh, gross," Summer complained, flapping her hands. "I have gromoflite guts all over me." 

The third person was someone Rick didn't recognize right away. He was tall, taller than Rick, with an athletic build and soft brown eyes. 

"Rick," was all Morty could say, and then he tackled the old man, squeezing him tight and lifting him off his feet. The young man was crying, gray paint streaking his cheeks, and it was all Rick could do to hold on with his skinny noodle-arms. 

"W-w-what's going on?" he asked; gasped, really, Morty was choking the breath out of him. Either this was a hug or a not-ineffective attempt at strangulation. "And when did you get so big?!" 

Beth shrugged. "Things got... bad, after earth was taken over by the Galactic Federation," she said. 

"It was kind of like when Unity assimilated that planet," Summer explained, taking Morty's place and hugging Rick as well. Even she was taller, nuzzling her painted nose into his cheek. "Except not. It was a totalitarian regime. They... they tried to set our house on fire. Burn us alive. We faked our deaths with lifeless clones, same as we're gonna do for you." 

"A-a-and then we colonized an empty planet," Morty explained. "We're constantly sneaking refugees from earth to our new home, but it's hard to tell who's a spy and who isn't. We're assembling an army." 

From the pilot station Rick heard Jerry's voice: "We all set to go?" 

"I-" Rick stared at his family, completely blown away, a fierce pride burning hot in his chest. "I'm. I don't know what to say." 

Beth stepped forward and put her arms around him, gentle but strong. "A 'thank you' would be a good start." 

Rick buried his face in his daughter's shoulder. It was definitely the exhaustion and strain making his eyes water and his hands tremble as he held her. _"Thank you."_ 　 

. 

. 

**. XII .**

The Smith family seemed to have found their raison d'être in leading the resistance movement on an alien planet. They teemed with purpose, delighted in how busy they were. Even their complaints about strained muscles, lack of sleep, developing callouses were done with a kind of awed pride. There were food shelters to stock, burn units to visit, troops to motivate. Information was gathered, heists were formulated. And through most of it all, Rick slept. 

Never before had he felt his age like this. Prison had sapped his energy and strength away and he found himself as the very thing he'd been running from all his life: a frail, tired old man. 

He accompanied the Smiths on some of their excursions and gave them the information he had on others. Beth was a natural with the sciences and often surprised him with how quickly she caught on and even surpassed him in skill. Summer, too; though Morty seemed more in-tuned with the emotional aspect of things. 

Morty-waves were not "stupid-waves." Morty's brand of intelligence was simply the opposite of Rick's- different in every way, and maybe twice as valuable. 

Gradually as his health improved he resumed his old habits of adventuring with his grandchildren, though no longer with the angry, frenzied thirst to prove himself. For this first time in his life, Rick Sanchez felt at peace. 

. 

. 

**XIII**

"Run, Morty!" he had his grandson by the wrist, throwing the teenager in front of himself to become a barrior between him and the beast that perused them. 

"R-R-Rick!" Morty, at nineteen, had lost much of his childhood stutter, aside from moments of great terror. "Rick, you're hurt!" 

"Y-yeah Morty, I noticed." He was holding his stomach together as they ran, feeling himself split and tear; its venom working its slow, paralyzing path through his nervous system. This was fixable, it was… 

His shining trail of blood was as good as a homing beacon. There was no hiding in the dense undergrowth of this planet if he kept hemorrhaging all over the place. He grit his teeth hard, and then he made a decision; the last one he would ever make. 

"Rick, what-" Morty protested as his grandfather shoved him, hard, into the cramped space beneath the tangled roots of a maroon plant. He looked doubly confused as the plasma blaster and the nearly-dead portal gun were forced into his hands. 

Rick, wincing at the strain to the gaping hole in his gut, bent and touched two fingers to Morty's chin, tilting his grandson's dirty face up to meet his gaze. 

"Be good, Morty. Be better than me." 

Sudden understanding, then horror, filled Morty's eyes. "Rick, don't-" 

Rick gave him a cocky grin and a tiny salute, standing and briskly walking back the way they had come. Only when he was sure he was far enough away did he let himself close his eyes. 

"I love you, kid," he whispered, just as the gargantuan creature reached him. “And I’m okay with this.” Facing it, he flipped it the double bird and laughed in defiance. 

. 


End file.
